Three weeks

Three weeks ago Hubs was in palliative care at the hospital and just had his pain attack.

I've met with the lawyer twice already. My inlaws think I'm rushing too much to get to the lawyer. So far everything's been easy (legally speaking) to deal with. Everything was set up right to transfer from him to me. There's one account that the bank won't turn over, and the lawyer's not sure why. He's dealing with that one. It might just be a bank policy thing, because legally it turns over to me cleanly.

I've started to take him off bank accounts and utility bills. I transfered the car into my name.

I've been to the safe deposit box more times in the last 3 weeks than I have in the 15 years we've had the box. Hubs always got things in/out of the box when we needed to.

My dad spent 2 weeks fixing the little things that needed fixing around the house.

I don't know what to do about the ice hanging off the roof & gutters of the house.

The death certificate lists a similar, but not right, disease for the underlying cause of death. For five years Hubs has been telling people he doesn't have 'disease X' and to see that listed on the death certificate is just WRONG.

I changed the refrigerator Hubs ordered to one that will fit better in the space we have.

The 'public' rooms are clean & presentable for company. Now I just need to bring some 'yes, there is activity in this room' into the rooms. Now they look like a 'look but don't touch' kind of rooms.

I've only yelled at one person that I can't do "X" right now because Hubs died 3 weeks ago.

And I still can't sleep after 4am without Hubs either in bed with me, or asleep in the recliner.

The waiting's over

Thursday during the day they could manage his pain with as-needed pain meds, he was responsive enough to say yes/no when someone asked if he's in pain or if he wanted pain meds.

Thursday night they moved hubby to a palliative care room (similar to in-patient hospice).

Thursday night he was restless but we couldn't tell if he was in pain or just moving away from the catheters. He got some pain meds and it helped some.

Friday early morning was awful, he had a pain attack that was terrifying to watch. The nurse gave him as much as-needed pain med as she could and I talked to him to try to calm him down. When he finally calmed down and looked like he was out of pain, the nurse talked to the doctors and they started a constant pain-med IV. That helped a lot. The only good thing about the pain attack was that no one else was here to see it, it was just me and the nurses.

The rest of Friday was easier on him. There was family with him all day, someone was always holding his hand.

Friday at 7.25pm he stopped breathing.

Change of plans

Hubs woke me up Wednesday at 4.30 am screaming that he's bleeding. He's bleeding from his catheter, I thought he'd managed to pull it loose somehow.

6am we're in the emergency room. The catherer's ok, he's bleeding internally

1pm-ish, he's had 2 units of blood and he's in the ICU. The doctors are still discussing where the bleeding from and what to do about it.

6pm-ish, he's getting 2 more units of blood. The drs don't know what's bleeding and any procedure to investigate and/or stop the bleeding could make things worse

2am, he's getting a 5th unit of blood

10am Thursday, he hasn't gotten any more blood and I know that's it. They can't control the bleeding.

All day Thursday was spent talking to the drs about what level of comfort care to give him.

Now we wait...

January Plans

Not a 2011 resolution, but I'm going to meet with a lawyer and see just how much 'trouble' I'll have if hubby doesn't have a will etc in place. The house is paid for and is in both of our names and the title for one car is in his name only. I'm not sure about bank accounts, we don't have many, and we can both sign on all of them. I guess it depends who the bank thinks is the 'owner' or something. Someone he used to bowl with is a lawyer and told him our assets aren't high enough to be a problem even without a will etc. Someone else told us that I'll go through 'hell' if there's no will. I don't know.

He's been feeling better recently - we bought a couple of kichen appliances that'll be delivered, hopefully, in January sometime which means he has to get his junk out of the kitchen. Then he's losing the slack time I've been giving him about keeping his stuff out of the kitchen.

This is a 6 room house, plus a finished basement. There's NO room where two people can sit down at the same time. None. Dh is an out-of-control packrat. I don't know how, but I have got to get things under control soon.

And after last week's snow storm, moving to a small condo where someone else deals with the snow doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Thinking Ahead

Hubs got good news at his followup appointment yesterday, and I can tell he's been feeling better too. And he's gained almost 2 lbs this week. The last month or so hasn't been good before this. His weight kept dropping to about 130, and for someone who's 5'7" that's not nearly enough. His red blood count kept dropping while his blood sugar was slowly stabilizing again. Things finally stabilized enough to go back on the chemo, and after a week, his blood sugar stayed normal and his red blood count went up a lot after the last transfusion. He got another transfusion yesterday as a 'booster' to get him even closer to a normal count. And another good news is that we got one free night at a 5-star hotel in town for this weekend. The only 'problem' is that a major snow storm is due that night too so getting home might be tricky.

We went to Friday night Shabbat dinner at our temple a couple weeks ago and one couple we've known there for a while offered to go out with us shopping or whatever. He'd keep Hubs company while she & I would have  "girls only time" which she freely admits is for me, not for her. It's a great idea, although I have no idea if we'll do it or not.

Hubs and the Rabbi talked and whatever he said (I wasn't there for the conversation) made Hubs feel better/supported/whatever. I mentioned to the Rabbi later that there's a good chance that 2-5 years down the road, Hubs will be gone. He told me that Hubs said 1-2 years, which didn't surprise me. He told me to 'think positively' and hope that they'll find more options, etc, blah blah. The chemo he's on is THE last one available right now, and there's nothing new in studies / research right now (and the oncologist is tops in the field so if something was there, he'd know about it.)

Maybe it's not 'positive' but I think I'm doing right by planning what to do after he's gone.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

in college, that was always one of the job interview questions. Maybe it still is, I haven't been on a job interview in a long time. I never had a good answer, it always seemed that the life I had then (school, working full time, engaged) was basically the life I'd have in another 5 years (working full time, married). Not much difference.

Today I'm married to a man with cancer and I really don't like my house.

Where do I see myself in 5 years?
As a widow, and in a house I enjoy coming home to

a week in the hospital

well, technically 1/2 a week, but it felt like a week. The new chemo skyrocketed his blood sugar so he was admitted last Tuesday evening and came home yesterday (Saturday). His parents came in on Wednesday and I went home for about 3 hours. Other than that, I was at the hospital the whole time.

That was not how I expected to spend 3 days of vacation time, but what can you do? I guess I could do a lot. I'm going to get home access to work, so I can use my laptop and at least do some work next time, maybe it'll count as a 1/2 day or something.

There was a woman visiting the patient next door. I saw her a few times and she was obviously upset. One time I walked out of hubby's room and she was just there trying not to cry (I think standing at 'our' doorway was the closest she could be while being out of sight of the patient next door). She had the "oh god, the world just ended, and no one notices" look that I've felt many times. I'm not a huggie type of person, especially with people I don't know,  but I couldn't help it. I walked over to her and said, "I'm sorry, I don't know you, but you look like you need a hug," and I did. She started crying and told me her husband was just diagnosed with cancer and it's terminal. We talked for a few minutes, I doubt I said anything earth-shattering. I saw her again when she was leaving and I gave her another hug.

I hope she'll be ok.